Simple extension to activate the Hook app.
Given you select something to then “Hook” it, it seems a series of native Hook extensions for the various aspects of Hooks or a sub-menu (Like what alexxander did here Sub/context menu with Keyboard Maestro) with different Hook options would be a great fit.
# popclip Hook
name: Add Selection to Hook
icon: H
key combo: cmd shift space # Activates Hook
Nice one @BernSh , welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing.
I have Hook installed and I know people love it but I still don’t understand what it does!!
Hook makes “Hooks,” that is, when you select something like to do to invoke PopClip; if you invoke Hook instead, Hook presents several options to make several types of Hooks which are then placed on the clipboard. You then go to where you want to place those Hooks and paste them there.
Think of it as a far more versatile and durable Alias. The coolest thing about Hooks vs. Aliases is that you can Hook objects you can’t make an Alias for. So, for example, if you have a line of text in a pdf that you can select, you can make a Hook for that selected text and then place that Hook somewhere that, when evoked, will call up that pdf AND the location within the pdf that you Hooked.
Use example, I have a spreadsheet where I collect items for the condo association board that I chair. I use this spreadsheet as a dashboard for us to have all the items we need to focus on. I make Hooks of the emails, documents, messages, and webpages related to the line items in the spreadsheet and paste them into the spreadsheet’s cells to quickly call up the related materials for the item we are on.
You could also think of Hooks as magical bookmarks that you can spread around that, when picked up, would magically call up the thing that you magically tapped the bookmark on, be it a car or line in a book or glasses you left somewhere or line of speech you heard or thought you had, etc. It’s a way of marking something for recall or retrieval.
It’d be neat for you to get it about Hooks as you have a perfect front end for the mechanism that Hook represents. A partnership or alliance would be a big win for everyone.
Does this shed some light or clarity?
It does, very intriguing!
I’ve started using Hook and am finding it very helpful. One of my favorite features is the ability to hook several items to one another. So if I have an email exchange with a coworker about a Word document I wrote after compiling various online research, I can collect all those items and link them together. In the future, if I access any of the related documents I can use Hook to show me the related items. The items are now just one click away. Hook works even if I move the files from their original locations so I never have to hunt through my file directory to find what I need. Very useful.
What do you do to remind yourself that you created the Hook? That has been discussed at length in other forums and is the one major limitation that has always been in the Hook UI.
Asking Hook to remind you that you used the App to Hook something is like asking Reminders to remind you that you created a reminder. Not sure how that thinking goes and that doesn’t occur to me as a limitation of Hooks UI. Hook does let you search for the items you’ve hooked within the UI.
It’d be nice to have some kind of badge or flag or tag on items Hooked so if you open the item there is some indication of a Hook present and I think Hook does let you auto-Finder tag items as you Hook them so you can find all things Hooked. Of course, Finder tags are cludgy on iPadOS and iOS and it’d be a lot of actions to find related items that way and tags collapse once you get into big numbers of them.
I’d consider what this seems to be asking as a feature request and not an app limitation or I simply don’t understand what you are saying.
I can see that it would be helpful to have some form of visual indicator that a file has been hooked. This hasn’t been a big issue for me so far because I primarily use Hook to connect files with my OneNote daily diary (basically a page a day in OneNote in which I record the details of the meetings and other work) or in DEVONthink. I use Hook links so extensively I just assume things are linked.
Still I have done some thinking about solutions. My first was to create a TextExpander snippet I can use to add the text “HOOKED” to the file (perhaps in the footer). I also have a snippet I use to create file names in a standard format. It includes an option to mark a file as “hooked” as part of its file name. I assume there are ways to further automate these measures via Apple Script, Keyboard Maestro, etc., but that is beyond my competency. I hope that helps.
Can you share the TE snippet?
Hopefully you’ll be able to see this. My format for naming files is “File Type - File Description (Hooked if selected - default is set to off) - Date”. I have an extensive drop-down list of file types I select from. The date is always the date I’m saving the file. The snippet also places the cursor in the appropriate place so I can fill in the description.
